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Urban Planner: February 25, 2010
Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to [email protected].
Dancers Alicia Grant and Cara Spooner perform in Body Cartography, which runs until Saturday at Harbourfront Centre. Photo by Andrea de Keijzer.
DANCE: Now in its seventh season, Harbourfront’s HATCH program continues to provide support and financing to Toronto’s artistic community. This year’s second HATCH project, Body Cartography, was created by dancers Alicia Grant and Cara Spooner in collaboration with visual artist Simon Rabyniuk and urban theorist Alex Marques. The piece, running to February 27, is an interactive dance and installation performance that uses psychogeography—the concept of using all of our senses to enhance our understanding of the space around us—to explore the possibility of a subjective city within an objective reality. Studio Theatre, Harbourfront Centre (235 Queens Quay West), 8 p.m, $12; $10/students, seniors, and arts workers.
WORDS: This year, CBC’s annual Canada Reads program has inspired the establishment of several alternative book wars, from the National Post‘s Canada Also Reads to blogger Kerry Clare’s Canada Reads 2010: Independently to the Keepin’ It Real Book Club’s Civilians Read. Despite the births of these offspring, the original Canada Reads remains very much on Toronto literati’s minds, and tonight, the Appel Salon hosts an evening with some of the shortlisted authors and those championing their works, including authors Ann-Marie MacDonald and Nicolas Dickner, and champions Perdita Felicien, Cadence Weapon, and Samantha Nutt. The evening will be hosted by CBC’s Mary Ito, and features music from Shakura S’Aida. Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street), doors 6 p.m., discussion 7 p.m., FREE.
LECTURE: With any disaster comes the question of accountability, and the climate crisis is no exception. The concept of climate debt has emerged as a particularly controversial notion, espousing the idea that developed countries should pay reparations to developing nations in order to help them foot the sizable bill for sustainability. Naomi Klein, Toronto’s first lady of activism, is one of climate debt’s most vocal supporters and will speak tonight on the subject. She argues that developed countries—which represent only a fifth of the world’s population—are responsible for three-quarters of emissions, while developing countries bear the brunt of the consequences. Trinity St.-Paul’s Church (427 Bloor Street West), 8:30 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.), $20, $15 for students and low-income earners.
MUSIC: Although the astoundingly prolific C.R. Avery has released fifteen albums and written and directed six hip-hoperas, his real strength lies in his live performances. Described by CBC Radio 3 as a “one man hip hop beatbox blues harmonica americana iconoclast,” Avery effortlessly blends of genres and forms, adding his own unmistakeable smoky, crackled voice to the mix. He has garnered praise from the likes of Tom Waits, and has performed with a variety of big names, including the Be Good Tanyas and Billy Bragg. Tonight, you can catch Avery at the Glenn Gould Studio and witness his beatbox-harmonica stylings in person. Glenn Gould Studio (250 Front Street West), 8 p.m., $29.50.